January 20, 2021, by In 2002 we discovered that Joe Gormley, former president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), was a Special Branch informant during the industrial struggles of the 1970s. There are other similarities, too. These included antiwar, antiracist, and environmental organizations that counted Jeremy Corbyn as a member and supporter. In the novel, an energy sector strike organized by the intelligence services is used to undermine the Perkins government. Already articles are starting to appear purportedly contrasting Labour’s supposed “problem” with women with the supposed lack of such a problem in the Conservative party, where by pure chance both the current leadership contenders are women. Buy a discounted Paperback of A Very British Coup … if ( localStorage.getItem(skinItemId ) ) { Our new issue –  on the incoming Biden administration – will be out soon. (MI5 officially concluded that this wasn’t the case.) var _g1; “One of your responsibilities,” he claimed to have been told, “is to make certain that the Ford factory is kept clean of subversives.” Robinson went on to say that a policy was pursued to prevent strike action at Ford throughout the period. Gandhi Led a Mass Movement for India’s Freedom — But He Also Constricted It, When Germany’s Social Democrats Made a Revolution by Half, Germany’s Christian Democrats Are Turning Toward Coalition with the Greens, Why the Dutch Socialist Party Is in Crisis, The Mexican Right Has United to Defeat AMLO. Professor Kate Jenkins. Since none of this can of course be the publicly given reason for challenging Corbyn, the challenge is being framed around the nebulous concept of “competence” and the false concept of “electability”. We’ll discuss the last four chaotic years of US politics, what happened in November, and what to expect from the incoming Biden administration. _g1.setAttribute('srcset', _g1.getAttribute('data-srcset')); The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Duran. Comrade Corbyn: A Very Unlikely Coup; Jeremy Corbyn: Accidental Hero; Dangerous Hero; Personal life; Honours and awards; Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (/ ˈ k ɔːr b ɪ n /; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020. if ( localStorage.getItem(skinItemId ) ) { To use social login you have to agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website. These were largely dismissed as conspiracies at the time. It morphs into a poor man's Frederick Forsyth novel in lots of way - … What all these bizarre manoeuvres against Corbyn ultimately show is the extraordinary level of entitlement of Britain’s political class of which the Blairite wing of the Labour party is fully a part. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. In recent months we have discovered that the British Foreign Office contributed millions of pounds to the Integrity Initiative, a shady operation based in Scotland which claimed to counter Russian propaganda. In 2016 we are now witnessing precisely that: an establishment led coup against a real left wing Labour leader. } This article is more than 3 years old . In view of Corbyn’s popularity with the party membership and with the unions, the initial objective of the plotters was to avoid a contest by forcing him to resign by organising an (unconstitutional) vote of no confidence against him by Labour’s Blairite dominated parliamentary caucus. } Many today in the British establishment hold a similar view regarding a possible Corbyn government. Alexander Mercouris Despite the legal advice and the all-too transparent reasons for doing it, it seems Corbyn’s opponents are nonetheless still determined to try to get a ruling from the party’s national executive to exclude Corbyn from the leadership contest. But the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to Labour leader in 2015 has changed all that. 833 Views. Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password. The Duran How Opponents of U.K. Labour Leader Corbyn Advanced a Political Coup With Antisemitism Smears. Switch to the dark mode that's kinder on your eyes at night time. Eric Zuesse Yet there are obvious parallels between Perkins’s experience of a shadowy establishment conspiracy involving British intelligence, newspaper magnates, elite civil servants, and a US government which sought to undermine his socialist administration and what many on the Left expect awaits a Corbyn. The republished front cover now describes how the book “foretold” the events of recent years. CROSS POSTED ON BYLINE.COM. Originally written as a novel by journalist and future Labour MP Chris Mullin in 1982, A Very British Coup depicts the surprise election of a radical left-wing Labour Party led by staunch socialist Harry Perkins in an imagined near future. Revisiting A Very British Coup in the Age of Corbyn, Get a $20 discounted print subscription today, The CIA’s Secret Global War Against the Left. A Very British Coup emerged in 1982. _g1 = document.getElementById('g1-logo-mobile-inverted-source'); He is currently a contender for the position as leader of the Labour Party. ’ Le coup de grâce de Ken-le-Rouge. Sadly, McAnally died of a heart attack, aged 63, the following year. This would culminate in the New Labour governments of the late 1990s and early 2000s in which Mullin himself would serve, recording his experiences in a series of popular and largely sympathetic diaries about the Tony Blair years. A Very British Corbyn Coup As one military general waves an anonymous fist at a potential Corbyn government in 2020, much to the indifference of the mainstream media, secret service and government Aaron Bastani asks isn’t it time to propose far more substantial cuts to defence and build a people’s GCHQ to investigate these sinister threats. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in A Very British Coup had an MI5 spy on its general council. For a long time, A Very British Coup seemed likely to amount to little more than the “delicious fantasy” the Observer described it as on its release. Prime Minister Corbyn would face his own very British coup. As fascinating as it was entertaining when it was first published ... it's disturbing how much still resonates. Support The Duran on Patreon! Mullin was initially reticent to draw direct comparison. A Very British Coup is a 1982 novel by British politician Chris Mullin. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. But, in fact, we now know that MI5 had kept a file on Wilson since the end of the Second World War as a person of interest. Here you'll find all collections you've created before. He presents TV and radio shows (including on RT). Inside the pro-Israel campaign to crush Labour’s left-wing insurgency. Of course, Tony Benn was never to ascend to the Labour leadership, and with the emergence of Neil Kinnock, the party began a long move to the right. - Val McDermid, New Statesman. Catalyst, a new journal published by Jacobin, is out now. The idea that plots against a socialist government are implausible because Britain’s security and intelligence community has been “cleaned up” simply don’t hold water. The plot which is seeking to oust him has been under preparation for months – since before he was elected leader – and the plotters were unwise enough to give the game away that they were planning to launch their coup in the hours following the Brexit referendum in a leak to the Daily Telegraph made 10 days before the vote happened. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. They see radical left policies as a disaster. What all these bizarre manoeuvres against Corbyn ultimately show is the extraordinary level of entitlement of Britain’s political class of which the Blairite wing of the Labour party is fully a part. If Corbyn seeks a cautionary tale, he need look no further. By contrast the profile of his challenger Angela Eagle shows that on both foreign policy and domestic policy she is a classic Blairite, voting for the Iraq war in 2003, voting against any proposal for investigations into its conduct thereafter, supporting the Libyan war in 2011, voting for the bombing of Syria in 2015, and voting for welfare cuts and for introducing university tuition fees. I remember watching Channel 4's (fabulous) adaptation of A Very British Coup in 1988. Get a $20 discounted print subscription today! It’s likely that Dearlove’s op-ed — which he subsequently followed up with a media tour in 2018 — was the tip of an iceberg. _g1.setAttribute('srcset', _g1.getAttribute('data-srcset')); January 20, 2021. We’re Celebrating Our 10th Anniversary. The Door Has Been Opened to a More Democratic UAW, The Business Class Has Never Liked Democracy, Donald Trump Was Always a Plutocratic Fraud, Joe Biden Is Not Ready to Confront Corporate America, If Biden Is to Succeed Where Obama Failed, He’ll Have to Fight the GOP, The Sheer Absurdity of Trump’s “1776 Commission” Report Is Hard to Overstate, 1,400 Workers in the Bronx Are on Strike for a Livable Wage, Joe Biden Lifted His Health Care Plan From Insurance Industry Lobbyists. Last year we found out that undercover police officers had spied on at least twenty-two left-wing organizations since 1968. Indeed, what some suspect he has already faced as leader of the Labour Party. The Patient-to-Staff Ratios Won By California Nurses Save Lives. However, following the 2017 general election, he revised this opinion. Yet Labour’s moderate wing has been struggling to agree on a "unity" candidate to challenge Corbyn … Rattles along with speed and great credibility - The Times. It's the story of the brief premiership of Harry Perkins, a former Sheffield steelworker who unexpectedly reaches Downing Street. By contrast it seems Corbyn’s opponents only have a letter of advice from a law firm to support them. No one takes seriously the claim Corbyn single-handedly lost the Brexit referendum. A Very British Coup comes from a slightly earlier era (Thatcher) but demonstrates Mullin has a keen eye for how power works in the British system and the writing chops to make a … Not mentioned, of course, was the fact that Corbyn had been among the campaigners who humiliated Dearlove’s MI6 for the central role it played in instigating the Iraq War. } catch(e) {}, by _g1 = document.getElementById('g1-logo-inverted-img'); LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 16: Jeremy Corbyn poses for a portrait on July 16, 2015 in London, England. A very British (and Corbynite) coup The main charge against Corbyn is that he is incompetent. This is the real story of a ‘very British coup’, which is now taking place against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Beyond that is the horror of the Labour party’s Blairite establishment that control of the party might actually pass to one of Blair’s most consistent critics, who has the support of the unions and the party’s grassroots. Here Chris Mullin reads from his own new version on the first days of the Premiership of Jeremy Corbyn in "A Very British Coup - the BH edition, Part One:" Release date: 16 August 2015. A Very British Coup was made into an award winning television series in 1988. In the documentary that made Gormley’s MI5 ties public, BBC’s True Spies, it was revealed that the Special Branch was talking to at least twenty leading trade unionists during the miners’ strikes of 1972 and ’74, and the three-day-week controversy. The novel is A Very British Coup written by Chris Mullin, later the MP for Sunderland South and, at the time of its publication, 1982, a journalist and close political ally of Tony Benn. A former Tribunite, like Chris Mullin himself, Wilson was considered by the British establishment to be suspiciously left-wing. Despite its growing unpopularity and its growing distance from the British people – exposed starkly by the referendum in Scotland, Corbyn’s election as Labour leader and by the Brexit referendum – the political class clings to the levers of power in Westminster with an almost obsessive fanaticism. Switch to the light mode that's kinder on your eyes at day time. %privacy_policy%. Ronan Burtenshaw is the editor of Tribune. “Our ruling class have never been up for reelection before, but I hereby serve notice on behalf of the people of Great Britain that their time has come.” These were the concluding words of the Prime Minister’s election night address in Chris Mullin’s classic A Very British Coup, spoken by Harry Perkins, the lifelong socialist […]. The problem with "largest mandate" is that it's a POV claim that's very open to dispute: Blair obtained the first preferences of 150k more voters overall (as Union members could vote), a clear majority of local constituency party members' first preferences (Corbyn fell just short of 50%) and a clear majority of MPs (Corbyn was obviously backed by only a tiny minority of the party). Chris Mullin, author Pic credit: Twitter. Every Major U.S. Bank Has Warned Correction Coming BUT Will the Fed Will Stop A Crash? When Joe Biden Takes the White House, What’s Next for the Left? The left underestimates the establishment backlash there would be if Corbyn … Help us grow. Comrade Corbyn: A Very Unlikely Coup continues as follows: It’s frustrating; because the thing about socialism, as the saying goes, is that it takes a lot of evenings, and nobody spent more evenings on it than Corbyn. His MI5 colleague James Miller would later say that the organization had promoted the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike to destabilize the Labour administration. When A Very British Coup was written in the early 1980s, the scenario seemed plausible. IN CHRIS MULLIN’S televised 1982 novel A Very British Coup, Harry Perkins — played by an entirely convincing Ray McNally — is a left-wing Sheffield MP. On Corbyn’s emergence in 2015, he accurately predicted that the Labour leader would face opposition from within the ranks of the party, but felt it “unlikely” that British intelligence would intervene. Wright also claimed that British operatives planned a smear campaign against Wilson’s government, code-named “Clockwork Orange,” which involved the leaking of sensitive information. Tony Benn, who Mullin collaborated closely with at the time, had narrowly missed out on election as Labour’s deputy leader. _g1.setAttribute('src', _g1.getAttribute('data-src') ); Unsurprisingly, given the McCarthyite inflections of the contemporary anti-Russia furor, the Integrity Initiative was found to have been intervening on social media against Corbyn and the Labour Party. Establishment won’t destabilise a Corbyn government says author of “A Very British Coup” Posted on November 13, 2018 by davidhencke. Jeremy Corbyn is far more Tony Benn than Harry Perkins, a union militant from England’s “steel city” of Sheffield. was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. var _g1; try { _g1.setAttribute('src', _g1.getAttribute('data-src') ); In 1988 this was adapted into a popular TV series. Coronavirus Is an Occupational Disease That Spreads at Work. Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British Labour Party politician and has been a member of Parliament for Islington North since 1983. 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